Research update – If only travelling was free!

My research project has taken a different turn since I last updated everyone. Before it was, ‘Why aren’t Australian domestic students travelling abroad during their time at univerisity?’ I’m now focusing more on whether it is our financial situation as to why students do not travel domestically or abroad during our studies and whether or not our relationships are also a contributing factor. So basically; ‘Is it our financial positions and relationships stopping students from travelling whilst at University?’.

Many people do wish to travel overseas during their time at university but many also wish to remain at home and gain life experience which could inlcude saving to buy a home with their partner or starting their career. Which is perfectly fine! I’m a fan of long term plans!

After recieving 80 survey respondants (So far) through the social media platforms facebook and twitter, I found people were more likely to respond when it was something that they were interested in. The majority of my survey respondants were people who have already travelled whilst being at university as opposed to students who have not.

I also found that when trying to recruit survey responders, people were more likely to respond when I posted in a light-hearted manner. Making sure to make others feel like they weren’t forced to take my survey and that they were more helping out. (Which you certainly were)

Interviewing people is definitely a learnt skill, I found it rather difficult to remain on topic because I would ask questions from their responses or I would relate their response back to my own experience. After relaying the interview in my notes I found that how I had interviewed was to my advantage as the interviewee was more comfortable with how I was relating to their answers of which it allowed them to open up more to me.